The present invention relates to a house-banked casino card game and, more particularly, to a house-banked casino card game that emulates a conventional Texas Hold'Em game in a player versus dealer format.
Texas Hold'Em has become popular over the last several years due to its simplicity, the ability to accommodate a higher number of players per table, and televised coverage. The game is played so that each player has the use of seven cards in order to form a five card poker hand. The player having the highest poker hand is the game winner. Hands are ranked in standard poker fashion, i.e. royal flush, straight flush, four of a kind, full house, flush, straight, three of a kind, two pair, one pair, and high card, in descending order.
In Texas Hold'Em each player receives two cards face down. Additionally, there are five community cards dealt face up. The term “community card” refers to a non-player specific card that is exposed (face up) and available for use by any of the players in order to form a poker hand. Each player is enabled to use seven cards (i.e. the two concealed cards held by the player, plus the five community cards that are available to each player).
In Texas Hold'Em, the cards are dealt sequentially so that each player initially receives two cards face down, after which the five community cards are dealt face up. Rounds of betting occur at certain times during the course of play, usually after the two face down cards have been dealt, then after the third community card has been dealt, then after the fourth community card has been dealt, and finally after the fifth community card has been dealt. Thus, there are four rounds of betting (in addition to an ante prior to the cards being dealt).
There have been many attempts to derive a house-banked Texas Hold'Em game for casino play, some of which include Casino Hold'Em, Wild Hold'Em Fold'Em, Big Raise Hold'Em, Colorado Hold'Em, All-In Hold'Em, Fast Action Hold'Em, Texas Bonus Hold'Em and Ultimate Texas Hold'Em. There are also other games using some aspect of Hold'Em, namely High Country Poker, Texas Shoot Out and Flip Flop Poker. Virtually all of these games are essentially games where the competition wagers on a player hand are against the dealer house hand. Only three of these games, Texas Bonus Hold'Em, Casino Hold'Em and All-In Hold'Em include the aspect of all community cards being dealt as in Hold'Em, with at least one bet option during play. Flip Flop Poker allows one optional wager of a fixed amount based on player hand against other player hands
In actual card room Hold'Em, all player wagers are against other players. Players use skills of poker judgment to determine whether to remain in the game at each betting round. Ultimately, one player wins the pot, unless there is a split pot based on equal hands.
To transform Hold'Em into a house banked casino game is not easy. Firstly, when casino games incorporate skill levels, then experienced players minimize the house advantage, whereas inexperienced players suffer a higher house advantage due to their inferior play. An obvious example is Blackjack, a game that very skilled players are able to actually win at, although the majority of players lose significantly more than they should if they just applied basic correct strategy. A new game should minimize the skill factor in order to have maximum appeal to the maximum number of players.
Secondly, a casino game is more attractive to more players if there are multiple simultaneous winners. This possibility is excluded in card room Hold'Em. A viable player versus dealer format would be a suitable solution.